Guild Wars 2

Have weapon sigils effect pets
90% aoe damage reduction
drakes- faster cast time for F2
beast mastery line also effect secondary traits like condition damage

shorter cooldowns on dead pets as well as much higher health/ dmg reduction to them.

they really die incredibly quickly and the lack of control makes it even worse.

Pet always goes behind target
AE passive mitigation of 9x%
Pet is like a DoT so always on target
Pet can move while attacking, they never need to stand still to cast ANYTHING

Increased base health and armor
AOE damage reduction by 75% or more
All main attacks changed to instant attacks
Shortened animation/activation on F2 abilities some of them to instants
Shrink the pathing zone around the ranger so pets don’t wander off half a mile and pull everything in sight.

Pets teleport to target and immediately start attacking
If the target dodges attacks that is fine but they should not be able to evade pet attack skills if they are running away from the pet (that is if they are going the same speed as pet)
Huge Aoe reduction
Better pathing in dungeons, or invisible to npcs unless we attack that target first.
What I wouldn’t give for an elite ability that allowed us to pull out a pack of pets at once.

I’d like to see some form of shared attributes with pets, either the pet gets an additional 20% of the rangers attributes, or the pet is an attribute boost to the ranger and they share stats completely.

What I don’t like, is that i’m running around with 1250+ condition damage and +81% bleed duration and the pet receives no benefit from it.

Pet survivability is a joke, they need to at least share agony resistance. I would suggest a % reduction they take from aoe’s but ANET is better then that, they need to rework the AI to make the pet ‘detect’ AoE’s/ charge up attacks and dodge out of the way. I’d settle for pets dodging the next attack after their master starts a dodge roll.

While I’m wishing, how about a downed state for pets in PVE? Same or lower Hit points, and the pet licks its wounds for 5 seconds and rallies. Just something to prevent the 1 hit kills

I would like to see 50% aoe reduction and evade on 3rd strike from auto attack just like the great sword, this would help loads with survivability in dungeons.

also the F2 abilities not rooting the pet to face one direction, and a fix on the pets range when using F2. instead of the pet running in and getting gibbed before it finishes firing the skill if the skill has range on it then the pet should use it at the range is has, drake comes to mind especially when I’m talking about this.

vespers.1759:

shorter cooldowns on dead pets as well as much higher health/ dmg reduction to them.

they really die incredibly quickly and the lack of control makes it even worse.

I agree to a certain extent about the shorter cooldowns, but it’s designed so that you learn to switch your pet BEFORE it dies. And the control is fine, maybe needs to be fine tuned a bit, but if you switch is still on cooldown, and your pet is dying, you can easily tell it to return to you.

Kishandreth.2798:

I’d like to see some form of shared attributes with pets, either the pet gets an additional 20% of the rangers attributes, or the pet is an attribute boost to the ranger and they share stats completely.

What I don’t like, is that i’m running around with 1250+ condition damage and +81% bleed duration and the pet receives no benefit from it.

Pet survivability is a joke, they need to at least share agony resistance. I would suggest a % reduction they take from aoe’s but ANET is better then that, they need to rework the AI to make the pet ‘detect’ AoE’s/ charge up attacks and dodge out of the way. I’d settle for pets dodging the next attack after their master starts a dodge roll.

While I’m wishing, how about a downed state for pets in PVE? Same or lower Hit points, and the pet licks its wounds for 5 seconds and rallies. Just something to prevent the 1 hit kills

I agree with a lot of these. Especially the condition damage argument. And the idea of pets detecting AOE like certain mobs did in GW1 and dodging it sounds like a much more interesting fix to the hard hitting aoes in dungeons and wvw.

Ryoki Hokishami.2756:

vespers.1759:

shorter cooldowns on dead pets as well as much higher health/ dmg reduction to them.

they really die incredibly quickly and the lack of control makes it even worse.

I agree to a certain extent about the shorter cooldowns, but it’s designed so that you learn to switch your pet BEFORE it dies. And the control is fine, maybe needs to be fine tuned a bit, but if you switch is still on cooldown, and your pet is dying, you can easily tell it to return to you.

which is all well and good in small encounters, but in dungeons where it runs in and gets 1 shotted or when you just can’t see it through the skill spam it starts to feel a little ridiculous.

and sure you can call it back, but there’s usually a delay that means it gets stomped before it can move. i don’t think i should need to call it before a boss tell animation in the hope that i guessed right.

In addition to many of the things already mentioned:

Return to Me (F3) puts the pet in a tight heel with their nose almost touching the side of your left knee, like a will trained dog, IRL. They stay there until you send them to a target (F1) or release them by hitting F3 again.

Anything I can jump on, my pet can and will jump on. Anything I can jump off, my pet can and will jump off to either follow me or attack a target.

Make the pet resemble a player more:

• Place ‘Search and Rescue’ on the pet interface next to stow, to give the pet the ability to revive on command, just like a player can. This alone would make the pet a lot more important.
• Give the pet AoE damage reduction. The pet has a lot less health then a player, and doesn’t have the ability to dodge. Why hasn’t this happened yet ArenaNet?
• Make the pet traits in Beastmastery universal, and make some useful traits for the pets. Seriously, the current ones are far too situational.
• Come to think about it, the whole Beastmastery trait line should probably redone. Rangers are forced to use their pets, so pet bonuses shouldn’t be a choice. Maybe redo to Beastmastery trait to being about “you and your pet”, instead of only the pet.
• Some pets are far more useful then others. The different pet species should have more defined roles then they currently have.

The two ‘improvements’ that I’d like to see for pets is AoE/AR resistance – we must get some sort of AR resistance for our pets to be able to run Factorials. Secondly, many of our pets ‘automatic’ skills are simply broken. (for example) When was the last time you got a ‘heal’ from a BITE or CHOMP? If Anet just made the abilities that pets already have actually trigger and work we’d be talking about ‘nerfs’ instead of adding boons.

I’ve said it many times and I will say it once more:
Make pets rally from killing an enemy. Wouldn’t be OP in 1v1 pvp, since the pet would rally from defeated player, not from downed player. This would also improve pets effectiveness in dungeons. We could still swap our pets just like now. Only add a possibility for the pets to rally when killing an enemy.

EDIT:
I’d like to add, that didn’t Anet mean the pet would be big part of Rangers dmg and pets should always be there helping. Or something like that. I hate it how a champion can make my dmg 1/3 lower with only 1 hit. And pls don’t tell me about controlling the pet. Most times, the pet will run really slowly or run in the opposite direction, and then run to me – through the foes 1 kill hit.

Koru.8574:

Have weapon sigils effect pets
…
drakes- faster cast time for F2
…

Yes to sigils. I’m running a beast master build and get ton’s of crits from my cats (if they don’t miss), but very few from my weapons. I cry when I look at all the “on crit” sigils and know there’s no point in me equipping any of them, despite all of the crits my build generates.

Yes to F2 cast time, but for all pets, not just drakes.

I wouldn’t mind being able to equipp some armor on my pet, both for defence and damage, like some protective leather harness and spiked collars etc the latter would do damage to any attacker each hit or even have an infusion slot or similar on them for spikes or metal plating to either give increased armor or do damage to attackers, it would help keep them alive and also could possibly do some serious damage to anyone feeling like blowing your pet up making them think twice about that option aswell as introduce a fun new mechanic for rangers.

Melee pets hit 3 or 5 targets.

- Aoe damage reduction
- Actually hitting and keeping up with player targets

- Pets gain your Agony Resistance.

- ‘Return to Me’ causes a pet comes to rest at a location directly behind the Player. While in ‘Return to Me’ mode, a Pet cannot block projectiles, but can still be hit by AOE. While in ‘Return to Me’ mode a pet becomes invulnerable when the player dodges. While in ‘Return to Me’ mode a pet is off the Aggro table.

- Tweak some Family Skill’s AI so that the parameters for activation become more susceptible to player manipulation and more appropriate to the function of the pet. Pets with family skills the player can manipulate in sensible ways are more useful to take and more fun to work with. For example:

Change the parameter on Moa Harmonic Cry from;
‘Pet Health < 95%’ to ‘Nearby Ally Health < 50%’

Right now it’s really difficult to manipulate in a Supporting way, and that is kind of the whole point of the family. Gameplay changes from trying to manipulate Moa into taking damage when others are suffering, and instead trying to position Moa in melee range of Allies who need healing. Keeping your Moa on the mob will be generally effective and work as a good skill floor because most of the time whoever is near the mob probably needs some healing. But there’s room to grow into a skill ceiling with delivering more clutch healing by using your own physical movement to reposition your Moa near a downed ally/low health ranged ally.

- 90% aoe damage reduction
- beast mastery line also effect secondary traits like condition damage
- shorter cooldowns on dead pets as well as much higher health
- Some Pets should always go behind target to attack (stealth)
- Pet can move while attacking, they never need to stand still to cast ANYTHING
- Pet “pounce” range increased
- All main attacks should be instant attacks (no cast time or animation time)
- Shortened F2 animation time
- Shrink the pathing zone around the Ranger
- Either pets should be optional (turned off with a damage buff equivalent to the pets normal damage) or Rangers need more pet skills that do not replace other skills (all Rangers get pet skills; Beastmaster Rangers get enhanced pet skills).
- Pets get agony resistance equivalent to the Ranger
- Pets can rally from enemy kills
- Have Pet “armor” with runes (customize pet design)
- Have weapon sigils effect pets

-Able to reliably stick your pet to attacking one target while you are attacking a different one.

-Long-term wish: Pets are visually distinct depending on the trait loadout of the ranger (for example, most points in skirmish give pets bigger claws & teeth, high BM makes pets bigger and beefier, high WS makes the hides of animals look more armored and thick, etc.)

-Do SOMETHING about the sizing of pets in general for Norn & Charr rangers. My Norn looks like he has a pet guinea pig and my wolves look like little foxes.

-Add more ranged pets

-Add more pets that contribute more utility for non-BM rangers.

-Add the Mistfire Wolf skin as a purchasable skin from the TP for any chosen wolf pet.

faster skill activation as well

- Agony/AoE resist.
- Higher HP/Armor or shared stats with their master.
- Instant or under 1s cast time for F2 abilities. Also smarter about it and not just standing there while the mob runs off.
- Smarter AI
- Some sort of AoE swipe/hit on melee pets. Not for every hit, but something on a relatively short CD.

Ability to put them away permanently, which would be useful for fights like jade maw or simply just running somewhere, since your pet getting hit by a enemy causes the ranger to go into combat movement speed.

90% aoe reduction
Stay behind me when out of combat
Quick response F2
Drake Chomp not heal enemy
Agony resistance
Gain distortion on Ranger dodge
Melee pets cleave (like all other melee attacks in GW2)

Pet Evolution – Your pet has roamed with you since day one. How come it still looks like it did as a juvenile and still has the same stats and personality of a child.

Gw1 has a pet evolution system..why was it not transferred over and improved upon?

1. Pets can attack while moving, same as players(even their F2 attack).
2. Pets have a dodge on a 10-15 sec cooldown that activates every time they’re in a red circle
3. Better AI when they’re on passive and when called back. It’s so bad when i stop before a group and my pet runs ahead to the group… sooo bad. Also when i want it to return to me sometimes he runs the opposite direction then makes a circle and returns to me after moving over every aoe possible.

My pet stay stowed if I want him to, not become unstowed if I take damage.

From what I have noticed. Even pet F2 skills that are AoE and don’t require a target they will always try to get in range of what you have targeted even while on stand-by. For example Moa’s or Dog’s using a AoE shout like skill: Fear,Regen, Protection ect. When fighting a moving target this is what causes the skill to fizzle and not cast right away. What I would like to see to improve this is well I don’t have a solution I just want it to not happen ^^

I think the problem is mostly when they try to get in range of the mob and a pet gets kited ,they stop trying to do the skill. As if you wanted them to stop because they failed.

The only thing I can think of is somehow reprogramming them to make your inputs priority and try to do the action again as soon as possible and also only cast where they are standing during standby mode and not bother getting in range of the target because if you wanted them fighting it you would have sent them there in the first place.

Dodge when I dodge. They heal when I heal, so they should dodge when I dodge.

Oh and they should be able to attack while moving.

this stuff has probs already been said but: pets attack and cast abilities on the move – nothing like running to a point, giving yourself a regen buff on the way-oh wait you weren’t in range of your pet cos he stopped moving a mile back to cast it…

pets can jump up and down stuff to follow you, not run around half a mile and meet up with your corpse, cos you just got caught w/o a pet as a ranger and hence died.

pets dodge when you dodge, in the direction you dodge

shared base stats, then different pets get different + stat modifiers.

I don’t like the “pet should dodge when you dodge” solution. The pet should be a separate thing to the player, thats the strength of the Ranger; you are like two players in one professions. If the pet was forced to dodge at the same time as yourself, it would mean that whenever you needed to dodge, you would often interrupt the pets attack behavior, thereby lowering your own damage. And it would mean that you would be forced to spend your own endurance, whenever your pet was in danger. You can also already make the pet dodge by simply using F3 and F1.

A form of damage resistance for the pet is a much more elegant solution.

• 25% aoe mitigation in sPvP and WvW
• 75% aoe mitigation in dungeons
• lower cast times on many pet skills
• drake F2 cone increased to 600 with wider angle 60 degrees minimum
• a function key that is similar to guard and a new skill that replaces guard
• pets take no fall damage
• pets evade when you evade
• when F2 is pressed, the pet will make an effort to cast it if within range instead of cancel itself often

All of you saying pet should attack while moving need to either heavily reconsider how op that would be or get better at ranger if you think that needs to be implemented.

Kasama.8941:

I don’t like the “pet should dodge when you dodge” solution. The pet should be a separate thing to the player, thats the strength of the Ranger; you are like two players in one professions. If the pet was forced to dodge at the same time as yourself, it would mean that whenever you needed to dodge, you would often interrupt the pets attack behavior, thereby lowering your own damage. And it would mean that you would be forced to spend your own endurance, whenever your pet was in danger. You can also already make the pet dodge by simply using F3 and F1.

A form of damage resistance for the pet is a much more elegant solution.

I like the idea of giving the pet Distortion when we dodge. This is helpful for aoe attacks that force us to evade, and lets our pets do the same thing. I wouldn’t want to force a pet dodge by using my own endurance, but I think Distortion on Ranger dodge + aoe damage reduction would nicely keep our pets alive more. Numbers in PvP would have to be tweaked so-as not to be OP, but in WvW & dungeons it’s quite necessary. I don’t mind my effectiveness being so reliant on my pet, as long as it isn’t dead half the time.

My Sweet Lily.1952:

I’ve said it many times and I will say it once more:
Make pets rally from killing an enemy. Wouldn’t be OP in 1v1 pvp, since the pet would rally from defeated player, not from downed player. This would also improve pets effectiveness in dungeons. We could still swap our pets just like now. Only add a possibility for the pets to rally when killing an enemy.

EDIT:
I’d like to add, that didn’t Anet mean the pet would be big part of Rangers dmg and pets should always be there helping. Or something like that. I hate it how a champion can make my dmg 1/3 lower with only 1 hit. And pls don’t tell me about controlling the pet. Most times, the pet will run really slowly or run in the opposite direction, and then run to me – through the foes 1 kill hit.

I actually like the pet rally function on a kill. In lou of it, when it rallies it should still trigger the pet swap timer (there should still be some kind of penalty, but congratulations on avoiding the downed penalty). Makes you think, is this going to be long and drawn out, longer timer is worth it, or can I stick it out with reduced damage for a few more seconds and rally pet. risk/reward is always awesome. I +1 this.

And as others have mentioned, Agony resistance is needed. It is rediculous that this still isn’t available. The stat is there in the pet info window. Simplest solution would be to copy and paste the rangers stats over to the pet.

Pets getting blown to kitten by AoE. honestly, the only time this happens is when players would have been splattered in the same area. You shouldn’t have had your pet in there, should have had a different one equipped, or should have been sending pet in and out with attack/recall function swaps. I still blame this on poor playing on part of the ranger.